Chapter Twenty-Six
Dahlia
The weight of his words crushes me, pressing down with the same force that buried me beneath the avalanche. Only this time, no one is coming to save me.
I always thought that finding the Silene vitalis would mean salvation, that I would leave these mountains victorious, my hands full of something precious, something powerful enough to change my future.
Dreamed that, at the end of this journey, my heart would be bursting with triumph, with possibility.
Instead, I am leaving with nothing. No plant. No cure. No Eryon.
Nothing. Again.
A black vortex of grief opens inside me, swallowing everything—hope, purpose, even reason. I thought this place, these stolen moments, was paradise, but now I see it for what it truly was. Just another dead-end, another dream slipping through my fingers.
Had I ever really had a chance? Or had I been clinging to a fantasy that was never meant to come true?
The thought chills me deeper than the cave air. I have spent my entire life searching for knowledge, chasing meaning, convinced that I was building something greater than myself.
Do the research. Find the plant. Ensure my survival.
I thought it would be simple. I thought all I had to do was follow the thread of science, of truth, of the one thing I had always believed in. The one thing that, no matter what else had failed me, was my true north.
But standing here, gutted and empty, I wonder—what is the value of a life, human or otherwise? Would it have been right to take what I needed, even if it cost him everything? Would I have done it anyway if given the chance? Am I any better than the man who betrayed him before?
After all, I had been planning to leave him despite knowing that we had forged some type of bond. But would I have left if he hadn’t forced me? Or had some part of me already belonged to him from the moment he saved me?
The weight of the questions has me staggering, trailing a hand against the stone wall to guide my exit through the dark tunnel.
My fingers drag over the rough, damp rock as I force my feet forward.
The cold leeches into my skin, but I barely feel it.
My mind is too tangled with everything I wish I could take back.
My fingertips catch on an uneven ridge of stone, and something about the texture stops me. Not the slick dampness of the cave walls, but something smoother.
Paint.
Although I can’t make them out in the dim lighting, there are more cave drawings here.
I remember when I discovered the others—tracing the ochre shapes with my fingers, marveling at the figures—how they faded and dwindled until only two remained.
The last of their kind, drawn together, standing over something small, nestled between them.
A child. A family.
I looked at those paintings with the fascination of a scientist, an observer, a researcher standing at the edge of someone else’s story. I thought them beautiful, thought them historical—proof of something that once was.
But now, I see them for what they truly are.
Not history, but his life. Eryon’s life. It was the weight he carried in his bones, the story of everything he lost. And I stood before it like it was an exhibit in a museum, admiring it with detached curiosity, unable to understand that I was staring at his grief carved into stone.
I press my forehead against the cool rock, my breath shallow, wondering if I had ever understood him at all. When had I ever understood anyone?
Certainly not Ben, until it was too late.
I can hear his voice echoing in my mind, the way he called me Dolly even though I hated that nickname.
The way he doubted my abilities, my hopes, my dreams. He told me more than once that I put too much value on the ethno- aspect of ethnobotany.
Encouraged me to ground myself in the science of just the plants and drop the humanity.
Maybe he was right.
Because everything that came with this plant—the loss, the lies, the culture surrounding it—had ruined lives. It was better when it was nothing but a specimen, a chemical, run through the mass spectrometer. It was better as a dream.
I had let myself believe in something that was never mine to have. I let myself believe in Eryon. And for what? To be thrown away like I never meant anything?
I swallow hard, pushing past the painful lump in my throat. Maybe I don’t know how to separate passion from purpose. Maybe I don’t know how to tell the difference between reality and dreams. After all, I thought I was falling in love with a Yeti. But maybe I was just falling for a fantasy.
Maybe I am the one who is broken.
By the time I stumble into the sleeping cave, lost in my own grief, my body is numb, mental exhaustion weighing me down like lead. Heartache blooms in my throat like a noxious weed, choking, suffocating.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go.
I sink down next to the fire, staring into the embers as if the answer lies in their dying light. But there is no answer. Just the quiet, steady glow of something already lost.
Like me.
The faint rustle behind me should pull my attention, but I can’t find the strength to turn my head until heavy footsteps announce his arrival. I drag my gaze to find him, standing there. Hope flickers in my chest for a single, aching second. He’s back. He understands. He—
He doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t say a word. Just disappears into the cave’s shadows, returning a few minutes later with my pack. I had no idea he rescued it along with me. He drops it at my feet.
In a clipped, emotionless voice, he says, “Get dressed.”
I blink, my brain still struggling to catch up to the change in our relationship, uncomprehending. But then my fingers move, automatic, reaching for the clothes I abandoned days ago as my nakedness no longer seems natural, but a vulnerability.
They feel strange in my hands. The fabric is stiff and unfamiliar, too civilized after days wrapped in nothing but Eryon’s heat, his scent, his touch.
I pull on my pants. Tie my boots. And with every motion, I feel it happening—my wildness bleeding away until I am human again. And I hate it.
I fucking hate it.
Eryon doesn’t wait for me to shoulder my pack. He grabs it from the ground, slinging it over his shoulder as if it weighs nothing, then turns and walks away, leaving me no choice but to follow.
I zip up my jacket and stumble after him woodenly, each booted step echoing through the tunnels. Too loud. Too unnatural. My toes feel strange at the lost contact of the earth. Just another layer of constraint creeping back in.
By the time we emerge from the tunnels, daylight sears my vision, the brightness a cruel contrast to the darkness I carry inside me. The sunlight stabs at my eyes, making them water, or maybe that’s just another wave of tears.
I blink them away and follow Eryon’s broad back through the deep snow, my steps clumsy compared to his.
I try to walk in his footsteps, but his stride is too long for me to match.
The cold presses against my skin, sinking into my bones.
I feel so much smaller without him, as if his affection had me bigger than, somehow more than, Dahlia. He made me Sruhnar.
He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t turn back. But he waits when I stumble and lag behind, standing still as the mountains themselves until I catch up. And then he moves again.
It is not kindness or affection, but his duty to protect.
As if I were no more than a rabbit under his watch.
That realization breaks something deep inside me.
My knees buckle, exhaustion both physical and mental, finally dragging me under.
I make no effort to stand again on my shaking legs.
My breath saws in and out of my lungs, and I simply sit there, slumped, curling in on myself like a frozen shell of who I was just hours ago.
Eryon does not leave me, of course. A strange, fallen knight cloaked in white fur instead of armor, comes to gather what’s left of me from where I kneel in the snow. He takes me into his arms, strong and unyielding, lifting me as if I weigh nothing at all.
But this time, I do not sink into him. This time, I keep my hands to myself, my body stiff against his. I ignore the crisp scent of snow and pine that threatens to envelop me, and I force away the memory of the first time he carried me. Refuse to remember how safe I felt in his arms.
Because this time, he is not saving me.
This time, he is carrying me to my death.